


This Is Not A Sacrifice Play

by queercapwriting (queergirlwriting)



Series: Of Chemicals and First Loves [9]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Love Confession, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, SO. MUCH. ANGST., SPACE GIRLFRIENDS, Unrequited Love, also first kiss, anyway, because what better time, bioquake, but daisy don't know that, but the energy is there, i ascended while writing this, i'm just sayin, it just means i had the time of my life, mind you that doesn't mean it's any good, nods to fitzskimmons because i can't help myself, skimmons - Freeform, skimmons angst, so much bi pining, these perfect bisexual pining angels, this show has saved my life so many times, under life-threatening circumstances naturally, well fine only one of them has been to space at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24668617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queergirlwriting/pseuds/queercapwriting
Summary: Daisy tells Jemma that she loves her after quaking her to prove that she's not an LMD (season 4 ep 15)based on a prompt by and for @humaninprogress77 on tumbles, and for the approximately 6.5 other Skimmons/Bioquake heroes out there (come out - punnnn - of the woodwork and hit me up y'all)
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Series: Of Chemicals and First Loves [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1320944
Comments: 8
Kudos: 129





	This Is Not A Sacrifice Play

Daisy had quaked Mack before. She’d nearly beaten the life out of him, out of her best friend, her partner. Everyone else told her that she’d been under Hive’s sway, that it hadn’t been her fault.

They’d all insisted on forgiving her, even - and maybe especially - when she didn’t want it.

Mack had held her, even - and especially - when she didn’t think she deserved to look him in the eye.

Even Fitz - _oh,_ Fitz - had come to forgive her. Not for hurting him, for nearly strangling him - he had such a pure heart, he didn’t view that as something to forgive - but for _leaving_ them.

But now she was back, and she was just starting to feel steady again, with the team she’d abandoned, with the family she’d left, who’d welcomed her back - welcomed her home.

And then Mack, who wasn’t really Mack, was hunting her.

She didn’t know what she felt when she quaked him into a wall, in a room full of LMDs that looked exactly like her. (How Aida had known her choice in underwear, she didn’t have the time or desire to think about.)

He wasn’t Mack, not _her_ Mack. He was programmed to kill her.

So she didn’t know what she felt, beyond her terror, beyond her adrenaline, when she quaked him against the wall and ran.

To regroup, to reassess. To check in on the rest of the base, see who else had been switched. See who else had been...

She didn’t want to think it.

She didn’t want to feel the way she breathlessly leaned back against the wall and slid down to sit, panting and terrified and betrayed - just like with Ward, just like when Hydra had...

This was not Hydra. But it felt like it was about to become Hydra.

Because then she plugged into the security feeds, and Fitz, Fitz, _Fitz._

She looked away because his blood was everywhere - she looked back because his blood was everywhere. She choked on her own scream and sobs and she forced herself to remember everything May had taught her about control, control, control.

Because it wasn’t Fitz, it wasn’t Fitz, he wasn’t dead, it was just an LMD, just an imposter... but then Coulson, the man who had become her father, wasn’t that man, wasn’t _hers,_ because he was murdering three agents, three good men, men she’d shared drinks with, laughs with. They were dead, and maybe the real Coulson was, too, and and and...

Blood. More blood, on the ground next to her.

There was always too much blood, today more than most.

Mack had always made his shotgun axe look light, but she had a dim feeling that it wasn’t the physical weight of the thing that was dragging on her arms...

And then there was Simmons, _her_ Simmons, holding out a knife like she’d never touched a weapon before but God, God she had.

Blood and bruises all over her face, her voice as shaky as her hands, but powerful.

Always powerful, that woman.

“There’s no way to know until they kill you,” Simmons was saying, starting to slump against the wall, tears threatening to spill along with her blood.

_No way to know..._

_Think your way through this_ , May would tell her. Think. Think.

“Okay. Give me...”

Relief. Sweet, pure relief swept through her. A small glimmer of hope. There _was_ a way to know without killing.

“Give me your hand.”

“Don’t touch me!” Jemma recoiled, and it hurt Daisy in more ways than she could process just then.

Because _oh,_ the ways she wanted to touch Jemma, and the ways she never could.

 _Her_ Jemma. Fitz’s Jemma.

But she had to know, they both had to know...

“Give me your hand, I’ll quake you, not to hurt you. _Not to hurt you_.”

Her voice became a whisper, then, hoarse with terror and adrenaline and things she had never dared to say.

Not to hurt you, she promised, because even if she tried, she never, ever could.

Jemma was stronger than Daisy. No one saw it, not really. Except Fitz, probably. Oh, _Fitz._

But Jemma was stronger, by far, because when she had discovered that Fitz was an LMD, she had stabbed and stabbed and sobbed and stabbed.

If the situation had been different - if it had been Daisy faced with an LMD version of Jemma - she didn’t know what she would do.

Just like she didn’t know what she would do now, if she couldn’t feel Jemma’s bones. If the trembling, powerful, bleeding woman in front of her wasn’t truly the woman she...

She thought, for a few moments, that Jemma was considering it, considering her. That this was really Daisy. Her Daisy. Because even if Jemma didn’t know it, Daisy was, completely, _hers._

But then renewed trauma washed over Jemma’s face, because she had probably believed Fitz, too, saw what she wanted to see because she loved him, and then he made her bleed that way, and she’d had to...

“Don’t touch me,” Jemma warned again, her voice ragged from the blood loss, from the trauma, from watching herself kill a perfect fascimile of the person she loved above all others.

Daisy had dreamed, so many nights, of touching her. Beyond their hugs, beyond their _I’m so glad you’re alive_ embraces.

But this wasn’t that, and neither of them could afford any more heart break.

The moment she grabbed Jemma’s wrist, the knife clattered out of her hand. She pulled her into the opposite wall, wrapped her close in her arms. Quaked, gently, gently, gently.

_Not to hurt you._

She felt Jemma’s bones and Jemma felt her Inhuman powers, and in any other moment, Daisy would be so very aware of how much of her bare skin Jemma had access to, but this was a moment for clutching each other; for allowing each other to cry; for relief and hope amidst encompassing terror and betrayal.

Jemma’s hands on Daisy’s bare back, Daisy’s hands nearly tangled in Jemma’s hair, their breath synching, their pulses coming together, their bodies fully aligned, fully flush against each other, because neither could stand without the other holding them up...

It was only when Jemma started trembling from the blood loss that they finally released each other, that Daisy held her as Jemma let herself slide down the wall to sit, as the biochemist let the hacker stem the blood flow in her leg - roles neither of them had ever signed up for, but ones they had become so good at.

Jemma, at suffering.

Daisy, at healing.

She watched as Jemma’s eyes fluttered closed, finally allowing herself to slip into the pain - Daisy hoped it was because Jemma felt safe with her - and she murmured something about hope, about getting out of this together.

Jemma asked how she could possibly see any hope, and Daisy couldn’t blame her. But the deeper Jemma’s voice got - it got deep, like that, when she was angry, when she was resolute, when she was in the depths of her traumas, when she was _done_ \- the more upbeat Daisy forced herself to be.

“There _is_ hope,” she said, “that our team is still alive. So we have to try.”

Jemma looked at her, then, and held her eyes.

Daisy wanted to tell her, then and there. That they had to try because Daisy would not let Jemma die. Would not let Jemma be hurt anymore. And not just because they were a team; not just because they were a family.

Because she...

And maybe Jemma knew, then. The way her eyes stared into Daisy’s in disconnected disbelief.

This was not the moment.

Daisy forced herself to look away, to speak, to form a plan.

When they finally stood, when Daisy put her shredded shirt on, she couldn’t help but wonder dimly if Jemma had noticed, had cared, that she’d been barely dressed.

Not now. Definitely not now.

Probably not ever.

But the way Jemma laid out everything they had to do, Daisy’s heart couldn’t help but lift. There she was, there was her Jemma. Exacting and precise and just a little bit smarmy.

And then there she went again, slipping into her agony, her blood loss, because she couldn’t think without Fitz, and then slid back down the wall and she was going to spiral, and Daisy could only draw the strength to be selfless by being selfish.

“Hey, hey, don’t worry about fighting them, okay?” She crouched down, and everything hurt. Everything hurt except her eyes, because they were focused on Jemma. Everything hurt except her hand, which had found Jemma’s.

“I will,” Daisy promised. “I will take them on myself.”

She tried for comforting and she tried for steady, but then Jemma was talking about atoning for Lincoln’s sacrifice, and that was when Daisy interrupted, when she squeezed Jemma’s hand and raised her voice.

“That is not what this is about!” Because it wasn’t.

She had loved Lincoln, but not in the ways that everyone thought. He had been part of the team, the family. He had been the first person - other than Fitz; beautiful, gentle Fitz - who had told her that her powers were a gift, not a curse. She had loved him; she had wanted to die when he killed himself for her, when she should have been the one, when it had all been her fault, when everyone she loved had suffered because of what she had done, what she had let herself become...

She had loved him, like she loved the team. She had kissed him, even enjoyed it, because she liked him well enough and because she understood him and because she couldn’t have the person - the woman - that she really wanted to be kissing.

The woman whose hand she was squeezing, the woman whose voice cracked with pain as she swore that she couldn’t lose Daisy, too.

And she might - lose Daisy. Because it wasn’t a sacrifice play, but it _was_ dangerous. And it might kill her.

But she would not let it kill Jemma.

“Look at me,” she said, her voice steady now, because if she was going to die, there was something she had to do first. “Look at me. This is not a sacrifice play. Because I will _beat_ them. You hear me? I know it.”

For a moment, staring into Jemma’s eyes, she believed she could. For her.

But if she couldn’t...

“If for no other reason than this: through all the insane crap we’ve gone through, the two things I’ve known, without a doubt, the whole time...”

Her voice became a whisper, then, because she’d kept the secret so long; something in her had always known that it would either come out as a whisper or a scream.

“... is you and Fitz belong together. And that I love you. I have always loved you, Jemma.”

It was a whisper, all a whisper, and her words traced down Jemma’s face along with the tears she was freely shedding, now. Daisy watched her confession sink in, watched it settle in Jemma’s body, in her wide eyes, her trembling lips.

“I love you enough to get you back to him, because if I’m not the one who can make you happy, then there’s no better person to do it than Fitz.”

Jemma’s lips parted to speak, but Daisy couldn’t bear a response. She didn’t have any more strength for it. She made herself keep talking.

“So I will beat them,” she repeated. “And we will get to the other side of this thing. Just like we always do. Together. You and Fitz. And me.”

“Daisy,” Jemma whispered as Daisy started to stand, unable to look into those perfect eyes any longer.

But then there were trembling hands pulling her back down, and then those hands were framing her face, and then lips that Daisy had spent years dreaming about were kissing hers, soft and firm and tender and promising.

“I can’t lose you,” Jemma whispered again when their foreheads came to touching, when they couldn’t tell whose tears, whose blood, was on their faces.

“You come back to me, Daisy. You come back.”

Daisy didn’t ask what it meant, that Jemma had kissed her. She couldn’t.

Words were beyond her. Words were irrelevant.

Everything was irrelevant, except that she would fight. And she would win.

There would be time to sort everything else out.

She would make sure of it.


End file.
